My Pain, My Thrill
by Commander
Summary: Peach can handle physical pain; in fact, her greatest secret is that it excites her. Emotional pain is a whole nother matter, however. Bowser/Peach because I am predictable, two-shot because I am still predictable.
1. part 1

(AN: omg you guys. I don't even know. I haven't really written fanfic, at least not like this, for years now, so the fact that I actually finished this is surprising in of itself. I'm still not sure if I'm entirely happy with this, but there are some parts I like, and after going back and forth between whether or not I should publish it I finally just said "screw it", and here we are.

I should note that, while obviously being familiar enough with the whole Mario franchise seeing as I didn't live under a rock as a child, I'm no gamer, and really didn't get more immersed into the games until I met my now-husband. So I suppose you can thank, or blame, him for this, depending on whether you like this or not. This takes place during New Super Mario Bros Wii (seriously, what is up with the naming of these games), seeing as it's the only game I've really played extensively. Kind of. I still suck at it, since I'm totally not a gamer at all, blargh. Anyway, that's the only Mario title I'm treating as strictly canon for the purposes of this story. There's so much negative continuity within these games that I'm kind of at a loss at how else to go about it, lol.

I'm so out of practice writing, and I feel so conflicted about this piece, argh. This is what happens when you take a break from fanfic writing (or writing in general) for a few years. But I cannot resist the delicious hero/villain, aaaahhh help me it's a disease. (For anyone who knows me, it should come as absolutely no surprise that Bowser/Peach is my Mario OTP. You know.)

Enough of this author's note... happy reading, and I hope you like this fic for what it is. :))

...

Princess Peach had wanted to forget about her birthday—and almost did, in fact. Darn Mario and Luigi for remembering.

True, she couldn't be mad at them. The smiles on their faces had been so genuine when she had entered the atrium, Toad leading the way with a simple "There's a surprise waiting for you, birthday girl!" Streamers and banners decorated the walls. Huge boxes wrapped neatly with bows awaited her. And Peach was able to breathe a sigh of relief that none of her party hosts stated her age.

Thirty. Not exactly a bad age, but not an age one wants to be reminded of, either.

So, despite their celebrating a birthday that she would rather ignore, Peach couldn't help but smile back at their enthusiastic cheer of "Happy-a birthday, Princess!" the second they saw her enter.

Yeats and Byron, the two newest members of Peach's advisory council, jumped out from behind Mario and Luigi and threw handfuls of confetti—yellow to match Yeats, blue to match Byron. Peach felt herself glow even more. The two young toads were so completely devoted to their job and their kingdom, and to their princess. Yes, this birthday wasn't turning out too bad after all.

"We wanted you to have a special day, so we threw this-a party for you," Mario said, gesturing with one hand towards the pile of presents behind him. "We hope it's alright..." His voice dropped a bit, as he uncharacteristically grew a bit abashed.

"It's fine, Mario. In fact, it's wonderful." Peach smiled at him. "I love it."

She meant for her smile to be reassuring, knowing that Mario was probably hurt at her treatment of him recently, but she was not altogether convinced of its effectiveness based on Mario's only slightly relieved, yet still apprehensive, facial expression. Not that she was mad at _him, _per se... of course, he _had _rescued her far too quickly the last time, and Peach halfway purposely forgot to bake him the usual thank-you cake.

Speaking of cake...

"We made-a you a cake, too!" In his other hand, Mario held a very sorry, soggy mess on a platter that could maybe be cake-shaped if propped up with popsicle sticks. "Figured you could-a use a break from baking for a change!"

"Oh!" Peach cried out in shock at the half-baked mass of ingredients before her, before she could stop herself.

Thankfully, Mario took this reaction as a compliment. "Byron, Yeats, and Luigi all helped-a make it!"

"Leave-a me out of this," Luigi interjected, with a bit more bite than the timid plumber usually wielded.

"Well, you _did _help! You cleaned up the mess!"

"I _told _you we should have just-a ordered one..." Luigi sighed helplessly, turning away from the just as forlorn-looking cake.

Just then, an enormous cake was wheeled into the room, seemingly by its own power. Surprised, Mario set down his now even more pathetic looking creation on the window ledge.

"So you took-a my advice after all," commented Luigi.

"I didn't-a order this," said Mario.

Luigi looked at him questioningly, and Peach bit her lip. If neither Mario nor Luigi was responsible for this huge cake, then who...?

And then, suddenly, in an explosion of papier-mâché, out popped a small, familiar adversary from the top of the cake, grinning wickedly at Peach. "You're coming with us, Mama!" Bowser Junior crowed, obviously pleased with himself.

Peach gasped, although in all honesty, this was hardly surprising.

But the next surprise to come out the cake was certainly unexpected. From the bottom layer, out came seven little—actually, not so little now—whirlwinds of trouble that Peach had done her best to forget. She gasped in surprise and shock that went straight to her heart.

Mario and Luigi gasped too, but their shock weighed more towards the side of anger. "The Koopalings!"

It had been so long since Peach had seen the Koopalings, and their very presence would have normally brought up strangely unpleasant and painful feelings, but mercifully, the young koopas spared Peach from those thoughts for the time being. Before she could fully process just what was happening, they roughly tossed the cake on top of her. She was surprised to find that she was unhurt by the weight—the cake was hollow inside. A perfect transportation device.

A perfect kidnapping tool.

The Koopalings—and Junior—could Peach consider him a Koopaling too?—wasted no time. In an instant, Peach suddenly felt her cake prison get lifted up and hurriedly jostled about, seemingly towards the door. She could only barely hear Junior's cackles and Mario, Luigi, Yeats, and Byron's yelps of protest through the cake's shell. With a whoosh and a thud, she felt the cake be thrown into something, the force of her impact against the inside of the cake jostling her, landing her squarely on one of the deeper scars on her abdomen. It still barely hurt, however. This cake was well-padded.

She barely had time to reflect on her pain, or lack thereof—immediately, the cake was torn apart, and she was greeted by Junior's triumphant smirk. "Ha ha! I got you now, Mama!" Despite the fiendishness, imagined or otherwise, of his plot, Junior couldn't hide the excited, hyper tone to his voice, like a child who had just won a game... because that's exactly what it was. He was a child, and to him, this was a game. "Daddy's gonna be so happy when he sees that I got him _you _as a birthday present!"

_Birthday present? _Peach thought in wonder. _Bowser and I share the same birthday?_

"Excuse me?" Wendy cut in harshly. "What _you _got him as a birthday present? I believe you had a lot of help here!"

"Yeah!" Morton said. "And besides, you told us we'd all get to keep her captive!"

"No _way _we're turning her in to Uncle Bowser!" said Iggy.

Peach blinked. _Uncle _Bowser?

"Yeah, really," said Roy in annoyance. "You really think we'd go to all this trouble to capture her and not be able to have any fun!"

"Shut up!" Junior shouted, puffing out his chest to make himself attempt to look larger than his older, larger... cousins. _Cousins. They're not Bowser's kids. _Peach's mind was still leaping, a heavy weight having been lifted off her heart. "It's my dad's birthday! Your uncle! _Our king! _And we need to give him the best birthday ever!"

"Why?" Ludwig asked matter-of-factly.

"Like he's done anything for us!" Larry snapped.

Lemmy just shrugged. "I personally wanted to stay home, but _nooo, _you all have to drag me here and get me caught up in your crazy scheme..."

"And you _told _us," Morton reminded. "You _told _us we'd get to keep the princess captive, just like the old days!"

"Yeah, well, I duped you!" Junior shot back. "How else did you think I'd get you all to come along with me and help me?"

"Ooh, lookie, big bad Junior can't kidnap the princess by himself," Wendy taunted. "Poor _baby."_

"I am _not _a baby!" shrieked Junior.

"If you had just said, 'Hey, let's go kidnap the princess', I would have been all for it," Iggy added. "You didn't have to _lie _to us. Dupe us, maybe, but not _lie _to us!"

"Yeah, but lying's _meaner, _and more fun!" Junior protested.

"Okay then, Junior," Ludwig said with a sneer, looking down at his much younger cousin distastefully. "When you made us swear our allegiance to you before we left for the Mushroom Kingdom? _I was lying."_

"You weren't!"

shrieked Junior, outraged.

"So was I," snapped Wendy.

"And me," piped in Larry.

"And me," added Morton.

"Me too," said Iggy.

"And me," said Roy.

Everyone looked at Lemmy.

Lemmy blinked. "I'm sorry, what was the question again?"

With a hand trembling with rage, Junior pointed towards Lemmy. "You may still have a seat on my bad guys council—but the rest of you don't! I'm throwing you all in the dungeon when we get home!"

"Yeah?" Ludwig said. "You and what army?"

Junior marched up to Ludwig, having to tilt his head back and stand on his tiptoes to attempt—unsuccessfully—to glare at him. _"I don't need an army! I am BOWSER JUNIOR! I am your PRINCE!"_

Ludwig glared at Junior. "That doesn't mean a thing to me," he growled dangerously. "I'm still bigger and older than you. I could take you out right here, right now, all on my own. And I wouldn't even _be _on my own. My siblings would help me. Seven against one, Junior. Think about your odds."

All of Junior's false bravado vanished. His eyes wide with fear, he trembled in front of his cousin, who was now being flanked by his six younger siblings, nodding their agreement with his threat. And Peach, still sitting inside the torn-open birthday cake, largely forgotten by the koopas, felt more torn than her makeshift dungeon. _They're not his kids. _Well, seven out of the eight weren't his kids, anyway. And she felt such a strange sense of relief at that, now finally knowing that her perverse, biting jealousy all these years had always been unfounded. Only Junior remained, still proof that Bowser did have... someone, somewhere. But still, one child was a far easier pill to swallow than eight. The revelation that the Koopalings were _not _Bowser's children as she (and seemingly everyone else) had assumed all these years had completely blown away the irrationally bitter feelings Peach held against them. They were truly innocent in that regard.

And yet, in this instance, watching Junior cower and whimper with fear like the small child he was, Peach found her heart going out to him. Mischievous and crafty though he may be, Junior was still approaching this scenario as nothing more than a game, a game that his cousins were turning into a deathly fight for dominance, a game that Junior was completely unprepared for.

"Wh-what are you going to do to me?" Junior whimpered helplessly.

Ludwig grinned. "Well, I think we'll start by—"

A sudden, blinding flash of light and noise cut him off, and all eight young koopas were knocked off their feet from the force. Peach, still on her hands and knees watching the whole scene unfold from inside the partially dismantled cake, was able to keep her balance, and thus saw what—or rather, who—had caused this interruption a few seconds before the youngsters could.

Her heart leapt.

_"ALRIGHT, WHICH ONE OF YOU BRATS STOLE MY AIRSHIP?!" _Bowser roared. Kamek, floating on his broomstick just to the left of Bowser's head, looked appropriately stern and foreboding, the jewel in his scepter still glowing from the magic blast that had brought them there.

The Koopalings, all looking taken down a notch or two at their uncle's presence, instantly leapt to their feet and pointed accusingly at their cousin. _"It was him!" _they all chorused.

To Peach's surprise, Junior had the complete opposite reaction of his cousins, leaping up as well but with his full confidence in his scheme and authority restored. "Yep, Daddy, it was me! I wanted to get you the best birthday present ever!"

_"THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER?!" _Bowser raged. "You think that taking my most powerful airship, running off without telling me, getting all your cousins in on the act... you think _THAT _is the best present ever?!"

"No, not that! Mama is!" And Junior ran over to the huge cake, pulling aside the torn fabric to reveal Peach, still unkempt and on her knees inside her trap.

Their eyes locked.

Every nerve in Peach's body was ignited. She wanted to run to him, touch him, have him touch her, have him reopen all of her scars. She had admitted long before now that her attraction to Bowser was not just a passing, fleeting moment of lust, no matter how much she had attempted to mentally shame herself into thinking otherwise. And their what felt like prolonged physical separation had, if anything, only intensified Peach's physical and—yes—emotional longing.

She saw in Bowser's eyes a torment that betrayed his similar yearning—but only for a split second.

He turned back to Junior, back in his normal loud, pushy, and authoritative temper. "For the last time, she is _not _your mother!" he shouted at his son.

_Then who is? _Peach wanted to shout out, but wisely held her tongue. Instead she just blinked a few times and gazed out of her now ramshackle prison, looking the part of the perfect demure princess, the quintessential damsel in distress.

"Stepmother, then!" said Junior, undeterred. "She's still the best present ever! I wanted to get you the best for your birthday!"

"That explains _that... _but what about _you _monsters?" Bowser demanded, turning towards Ludwig.

Ludwig shrugged awkwardly, looking like a kid who had gotten his hand caught in the cookie jar. "Uh, well, we, uh..."

"Junior bribed us," Lemmy blurted out.

_"Bribed _you?"

"More or less," Ludwig mumbled, looking at the floor in shame.

"Are you kidding me?" growled Boswer, frowning at all eight of the youngsters. "Junior, I've ordered you to stop kidnapping the princess like ten times by now! You think I want another international relations disaster on my hands?"

"Uncle Bowser," said Wendy, somehow both harshly and diplomatically at the same time, "I don't exactly mean to question you here, but really? You're talking about setting off a relations crisis over us doing something that you've done a million times before?"

"And that I don't do anymore, if you haven't noticed!" Bowser snapped.

_I've noticed, _Peach protested inwardly. _And I wish you still did. _Her heart was now thumping so hard, she feared that it was audible to the others. Hopefully they would all mistake it for fear.

"Who cares?" said Roy crossly, folding his arms over his chest impatiently. "Relations disaster or not, we've already kidnapped her. We might as well have some fun now!"

"Yeah!" said Larry excitedly. "Remember when we each got to guard her in our own castle? We wanna do that again! It would be just like the old days!"

_"No!" _cried Peach in alarm, speaking up for the first time.

All of the koopas glanced at her with expressions that indicated that, despite the fact that she was the topic of conversation, they had almost forgotten she was there. Bowser's eyes remained on Peach the longest, his expression unreadable. If it had just been the two of them in the room, Peach would have begged, if she needed to: _After all this time apart we're finally together again, and you just leave me with the Koopalings?_

But they weren't alone, and the Koopalings, paying little heed to the princess's outburst, were chattering excitedly again, for a moment reverting back to the children they were when they first captured Peach so long ago. "Yeah! We can set traps for Mario when he comes and tries to free her—"

"—and then _kick his butt!—"_

"—and when he does beat one of us, the princess will already be on her way to the next castle, so he'll have to start all over again!"

"No, no, no, no, _NO!" _shrieked Junior, stomping his foot in the beginnings of a temper tantrum. "She's not for _you! _She's for _Daddy!"_

_**"QUIET!" **_roared Bowser.

An instant, obedient silence overtook the room as all eight of the young koopas' mouths snapped shut.

"What makes _any _of you brats think this is something you can decide?" Bowser continued, taking the time to glare at each one individually, half angry parental figure, half irritated ruler, all imposing and menacing. "Don't forget that while I may be your uncle—or father—I'm also your _king!_ Which means that you do _not _get to decide what is done with the princess, you do _not _get to decide what's the best way to run my kingdom, and most importantly, you do _NOT _have the right or authority to take one of my ships without asking! _GOT IT?"_

Eight bowed, subdued heads nodded in affirmation.

"Now to decide what to do with you... and you." Bowser looked at Peach, with no real tenderness but no harshness, either.

"Bowser, _please," _Peach began, but her throat dried up, the other presences in the ship stopping her words yet again. Was this truly the reason why? Was this why Bowser had completely left her high and dry and no longer made any real efforts to kidnap her? Because he was concerned about inter-kingdom relations? He never had been before, and their kingdoms had never been on good terms to begin with—certainly for far longer than Peach had been more-or-less the acting queen. He had never given any indication that he gave a flying goomba over what the Mushroom Kingdom thought of him—if anything, he seemed to revel in the fact that he was reviled. Why the change? Was it just an excuse to dump Peach?

_Dump?! _Oh, that was rich. How could he dump someone who he had never really officially been with in the first place? Besides, it didn't matter. Excuse or no excuse, Peach knew fully well that Bowser had moved on from her. It wasn't too long after his last true kidnapping of her that Bowser Junior had appeared on the scene. There was another woman in his life now, and Junior was proof of that. Peach hung her head, not wanting to look at Bowser any longer.

"If I may, sire?" It was Kamek, who had been hovering in the air and silently watching the whole scene play out.

"Go ahead," Bowser said, a weary frustration overtaking his anger from a moment ago.

"The youngsters have been bored and restless for a long time now. In all honesty, so have _I._ You can't blame us, the children especially, for wanting to break out of the rut."

"Hey, I'm not a child!" Ludwig protested boldly.

"You are for two more months!" Bowser snapped back. "And I'll keep treating you like a child for as long as you keep acting like one! I told you to shut your trap!"

Ludwig scowled, but dutifully clasped his hands and looked back down at the ground, silent once more.

"Your uncle's right, of course," said Kamek, sternly but still with a touch of understanding. "You're still a child—you all are. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with wanting to have a little harmless fun every once in a while."

"This isn't exactly _harmless," _Bowser growled.

"Isn't it, though?" Kamek countered. "The kids are having fun, obviously, getting out and wrecking some havoc. You have fun yanking on the Mario brothers' chain and sending them on a long, seemingly pointless journey. And you have fun fighting them when they do finally reach your castle, of course. You can't lie to me and tell me that you don't enjoy that. The brothers themselves have fun traveling throughout the different worlds and being the heroes at the end of the day. I'd say even the princess enjoys having free reign of our castle. You tend to spoil her while she's there."

"I—I do not!" cried Bowser, defensively. Too defensively. Kamek, however, was looking at Peach and giving her a knowing smile. Peach, however, turned her head away, suddenly embarrassed. How much did Kamek know about the relationship Peach and Bowser had—or at least had once had? Peach knew Kamek was Bowser's most trusted advisor, not to mention the closest thing to a parental figure that he seemed to have, but she felt her face flush uncomfortably anyway. After all, as close as she was to Toad and regardless of the fact that she trusted him, she still wasn't a complete open book with her closest advisor. She had never breathed a word to Toad about what it was really like being captured by Bowser. Then again, unlike Toad, Kamek had actually witnessed first-hand Peach's treatment, at least the treatment that didn't happen behind closed doors, every time.

"Well, you certainly treat her with more respect than most military overlords treat their captives," continued Kamek levelly. "Let's face the facts as they are right now. As young Roy has already pointed out, the princess has already been kidnapped. We may as well finish what we've started. I'm sure the Mario brothers have already set out to rescue her. Let's give them the journey and the obstacles that they're accustomed to."

"And let's remind them that we still exist!" piped up Larry. Bowser glared at him sternly, but said nothing.

"One more thing to consider, Bowser," added Kamek, lightly and with a small, confident smile. "Allowing the youngsters to deal with the Mario brothers on their way to the castle will get them out from underfoot for a week or so. A bit of peace and quiet for you may be the best birthday present that these Koopalings could offer."

"Well, I can't argue there. Alright, you brats! You've just won yourselves the job of keeping the Mario losers away from the castle as long as possible—_but don't think you're off the hook!"_ Bowser snapped, as the Koopalings had brightened and whispered numerous utterances of _"yes!"_ and _"alright!"_ "You're all still in trouble for stealing my ship—you especially!" He singled out his son.

Junior's smile faded ever so slightly, but he still regarded his father hopefully. "Aw, come on, Daddy, it's still the best birthday present ever... right?"

_"Wrong!_ And just for being the instigator of this whole thing, you _won't_ be joining your cousins! You're coming home with me and will be very, _VERY _silent and still until I figure out what to do with you! Got it?"

"What? No fair!" screamed Junior, furious. "I want to fight Mario too! Why do they get to and I don't?"

"They're not the ones who got the idea to kidnap the princess in the first place, they're not the ones who talked everyone else into stealing _MY MOST VALUABLE AIRSHIP, _they're not the youngest, and because I said so! _**NOW SHUT YOUR TRAP BEFORE I SHUT IT FOR YOU!"**_

"Not fair," whimpered Junior, but even he knew better than to argue with his dad in this state.

"As for you monsters," Bowser said to the Koopalings, who had been excitedly whispering to themselves who got which land and which castle to defend, "don't think this is just a vacation and all fun and games, because it's not! Kamek's going to be keeping an eye on you, since he said that he's just as bored as you are! Well, now he's got something to do!"

Kamek's face fell. "Me and my big mouth."

"Take them to their castles and make sure they're ready for those stupid plumbers to show up!" Bowser ordered Kamek. "I'll take the ship back to the main castle."

"What about the princess?" Iggy piped up. "Isn't she coming with us, too?"

Bowser barked out a loud laugh at that. "Oh wow, that's a good one. You actually think I'd trust malicious little brats like you with her? Not on your life!"

Peach smirked at that, letting herself hope again. He was starting to sound like his old self again.

The Koopalings all took that comment surprisingly well, too. Or perhaps not so surprisingly. "He called us malicious! _Awesome!"_

"I suppose I have no one to blame for this but myself..." Kamek sighed. "Well, happy birthday, Bowser. Enjoy your time to yourself." He raised his scepter, and in a flash, he and the seven Koopalings were gone.

Junior, seeming to no longer need to keep up a sense of bravado to prove himself to his cousins, crawled up to Peach and curled up in a ball on her lap, neither one of them noticing a spike on his shell nicking her arm.

"Mope all you want, you're still in big trouble," Bowser growled at his son.

"Be easy on him, for pity's sake," Peach said, wrapping her arms around Junior. "He didn't mean any harm."

"Yeah, but he's still a disobedient brat." With Kamek and the Koopalings gone, Bowser also seemed to have dropped an air about him, and now looked uncomfortable to be in the same room as Peach.

Peach felt her throat constrict. What had happened? Was it something she'd done? Why did the one person she knew who was perfectly content to bask in his own evil glory and not give a damn if it soured anyone's opinion of him suddenly seem to care about acting like a good neighbor—and by extension, ignore her? "Bowser, please, just—"

"Listen, Peach, _I'll_ make decisions regarding my son, not _you!_ Nothing either of you has to say is going to make me turn soft! Now I don't want either one of you to bother me. I'm flying us home."

"But—" Peach began.

_"ENOUGH!"_ Bowser barked. Peach flinched and held Junior tighter, as Junior burrowed his head into her body deeper. Bowser stared at them for an awkward, long moment, and then abruptly turned and stormed out of the room and to the cockpit.

Junior whimpered in Peach's arms. "I didn't mean to make Daddy so mad, Mama, I promise."

"It's okay," murmured Peach, stroking Junior's head. "I know you didn't, and I think he knows, too."

"I just wanted us to all be together... me and my parents... I just want us to be a family..."

Peach had, up until that point, done a fair job of keeping her physical emotions at bay, but Junior's heartbroken confession caused tears to suddenly spring in her eyes.

Who was this child, anyway? Where was his mother—his real mother? What made him so steadfastly believe that _she_ was his mother, despite all evidence to the contrary?

One thing was certain—Junior's mother was, for whatever reason, not in the picture, and he was clinging to the closest thing to a mother he had. And Peach could feel her heart breaking for the child, with both sympathy and empathy.

She had no concept of how Koopas aged, but she had been older, mentally and emotionally if not physically, than Junior when her own parents had disappeared. Sixteen. She had been sixteen... it was nearly fourteen years now that they'd been gone. Nearly half her life she'd been carrying on without them. The logical part of her brain knew that they were dead. They had left to act as mediators between the warring kingdoms of Terraland and Gaulleraute, both a several weeks' journey away from the Mushroom Kingdom. They were expected to be gone for a few months.

"I don't know if I can handle things on my own for that long," Peach had admitted to her father just before he and her mother left.

"Oh, you will. I know you will. I _promise_ you will." Her father had winked at her with a smile and placed her hand up against hers. "Royal promise."

Peach had smiled as well. "Royal promise," she agreed, their slightly crooked pinky fingers forming the smallest of hooks between them. The royal pinky, her father had always called it.

And Peach wasn't about to break a royal promise.

Weeks turned into months. Two, three, four. No word as to their whereabouts. Five, six months. Still nothing. Peach waited and waited anxiously, feeling more and more vulnerable, more and more alone.

Her kingdom, in other words, was a prime candidate for a hostile takeover, and it was then that she had first met Bowser.

Back then, it had really been a true kidnapping. He had wanted her kingdom, snatched her away, dragged her forcibly to his castle in the Dark Lands... but even then, he had insisted to his koopa troopas that she be treated well, and while she was still kept in the dungeons at that early state, they were still comfortably accommodated. It had been so strange, so alien, to be a prisoner and yet treated so respectfully. The koopas went above and beyond for her, and not simply because they were ordered to, but also because they just genuinely liked her. Peach grew fond of them too, learning the names of the ones in charge of her, growing comfortable with them and joking with them throughout the weeks of her imprisonment... and admitting to them her sorrow over the disappearance of her parents. Bowser checked up on her at least once a day, although he never said much to her. He would just watch her with an odd, guarded expression on his face as she tried (but failed) to ignore him and focused on talking with the troopas in charge of her instead.

No, this certainly wasn't the most horrific hostage situation that there had ever been. And Peach didn't even mind the heat from all of the lava around. But she was still homesick, and so when a seemingly ordinary plumber named Mario had suddenly shown up, defeated Bowser, and rescued Peach, she was genuinely happy and grateful, and baked a cake for him as a thank-you as soon as she was returned safely home. This wasn't anything out of the ordinary for her—Peach loved to bake and used any excuse she had to get in the kitchen—but everyone in the kingdom and beyond treated it as the start of an epic romance. Peach never wasted too much energy trying to refute them, as she suspected Mario had a bit of a crush on her, and it wasn't like she didn't like him... she just didn't like him _that_ way.

But the fact that he was constantly playing the hero to her damsel-in-distress only fueled the romance rumors, as Bowser seemed to have found a new favorite hobby in capturing her. _It's because my parents still haven't returned and I'm ripe for the kidnapping,_ Peach had thought bitterly to herself at first, but as time wore on, he seemed to forget about taking over her kingdom entirely and turned his focus on just having her nearby. And gradually, bit by bit, she was being treated even less like a prisoner than she had been in the beginning, and more and more like a guest. A guest who was always supposedly captured and forced there, but Peach had to admit to herself that she not only did she not mind it, she actually in a way enjoyed it. The bright cheer and happiness of the Mushroom Kingdom was home, of course, and Peach loved her homeland dearly... but sometimes all of the saccharine cheer just got to be too much and she needed a change of pace.

After the first few kidnappings, she was allowed free reign of the castle. Then, the castle grounds. She was welcomed in the kitchen, all of the koopas in the castle overjoyed to have her bake for them. When she wasn't baking, she was usually out on the castle grounds, playing golf or tennis. There was always someone around who was willing to play against her... and eventually, Bowser started playing, too. Peach was taken aback at how much respect his underlings had for him, despite how much he liked to ham up his villainy. Or perhaps because of it. And Peach, if she was honest with herself, really couldn't blame them. Despite herself, she found Bowser... charming, in his own bizarre way.

But that hardly explained her reaction when one day, instead of being captured by Bowser, she was captured by seven koopa children. Seven children who Bowser affectionately called his "little monsters" when they brought her back to them. Seven children who were so happy and eager for Bowser's approval and praise.

So. He had children.

Well, why should Peach care?

It wasn't like they had anything between the two of them other than kidnapper and kidnappee. There was nothing wrong with him having children. And there was no reason why Peach should feel jealousy over this.

Why, oh why was Peach feeling jealousy over this?

Jealousy so strong, in fact, that that night, lying in her grand, soft bed, the bed that she had fallen asleep in so easily so many times before, she couldn't. She tossed and turned. She stared at the ceiling. She stared at the floor. Her stomach was twisted in painful knots. Her eyes were aching with unshed tears. And finally, unable to sleep, unable to do anything but wallow in her own self-pity, she was suddenly up, out the door, and descending the long hallway to Bowser's room.

The door was unlocked.

Normally Peach would have rather died than invaded anyone's privacy, but she was so irrational with jealousy and anger that she had to know. She had to know just who _she_ was. Who this mystery koopa woman was who slept with Bowser and had been his this entire time and Peach had never known. She had to know who was the mother of the Koopalings. Oh no, not to harm her or anything—she may have been angry, but she wasn't _that_ angry—but she just needed closure. Her mind, her heart had to see for herself the obvious truth that she meant nothing to Bowser.

She stepped inside his room and shut the large, heavy door behind her. It closed with a loud clang.

Bowser shot up from his bed and instinctively shot fire from his mouth at the door.

Peach, unfazed, ducked. One of the flames hit the lantern hanging from the wall, illuminating the room, while the rest fizzled and died upon hitting the stone walls.

_"Peach?"_ Bowser yelped incredulously. "What do you want?"

Peach looked at his bed. There was no one else there.

Who...

If anything, her stomach was in even more knots now. As well as her heart.

Her gaze locked intensely with Bowser's. She could feel him breathing, even from her position just inside the closed door. She could feel the look in his eyes, feel that it was the exact same pain in her chest.

"I know the way you look at me, Bowser," she finally said.

Even after the fact, she still didn't know for sure if she had meant it as an invitation or not... but even if she hadn't, she still had absolutely no objections to Bowser taking it as one.

He stood up, pulled her towards him, pulled her on top of him on the bed, ran his hands, his mouth, his tail all over her body... Peach cried out over and over from the delirious ecstasy stinging her body, her senses, over, and over again. This moment, one that she finally realized she'd been longing for for years now, seemed to last an eternity and yet was over far too quickly. For before Peach knew it, she, the twenty-one year old princess-de facto-queen of the Mushroom Kingdom, had just lost her virginity to the biggest enemy of her kingdom, who also happened to be a completely different species from her.

And there was no denying that it was exactly what she had wanted.

"Oh..." she breathed, trying to steady her still tingling body.

"Oh... oh jeez." Bowser's voice sounded different. Panicky, almost. "You're bleeding!"

Peach opened her eyes and looked at her shoulders, where Bowser's claws had been digging into her flesh during the deed. Oh... oh. _That's_ what the stings had been. Her shoulders, her arms, even... she ran a hand down her back. Yes, even her back was scratched to hell and back, the deepest cuts dripping blood.

Bowser pushed Peach off of him, probably rougher than he intended. "Oh jeez, I swear I wasn't meaning to cut you up like that. Wait, get off the bed! YOU'RE GONNA BLEED ALL OVER MY SHEETS!"

"Sorry!" Peach said hastily, somehow managing to stand up despite her legs wobbling and shaking at her newly deflowered state.

Bowser's room had a bathroom conveniently adjoined, and in three lengthy, frantic strides the giant koopa was already there, rummaging for towels. "Okay, seriously, Peach, you're like the only person I know who would say 'sorry' over something that you didn't even do!" A towel was suddenly flung out from the room. Peach caught it. She dabbed at her wounds slowly, waiting for Bowser to apologize, when she realized that what he had just said was probably the only way he even knew how to apologize. And besides...

"It's fine, Bowser, really. You didn't hurt me." That was a lie; he _had_ hurt her, but... how to explain to him that she had actually, in some strange way, _liked_ getting hurt? She was having trouble acknowledging it to herself, let alone trying to convince him.

"Like heck I didn't. Your blood doesn't lie!"

"Really, it's fine, I swear." She kept the towel pressed against her deepest gash on her upper arm, trying to will herself to stop bleeding, not because it bothered her but because it bothered _him. _

He stepped out of the bathroom and examined her with an almost pained expression, keeping an arm's length of distance between them. Peach wanted to step closer and stroke him in comfort and reassurance, but made no moves to close the gap he was clearly wanting to keep.

"I promise you... I'm fine," she said instead, gently. "In fact..." She gulped, but still kept eye contact, and then said, in a voice barely above a whisper, "I've been wanting this for a long time now."

"You and me both... but you need to leave now."

"Are you sure?"

Bowser tossed her her nightgown as an answer. "Seriously, I've wanted this so bad and for so long that now that we've started, it'll be harder to stop, so... just leave, okay?"

Peach slipped the nightgown back on. There was a gash ripped near the torso. "It's going to be hard for me to stop too, so... why even try to?"

"Do you _want _to get ripped up to shreds again?"

Peach was silent for too long.

"Well, _I_ don't want you to!" Bowser snapped.

That might have been the most surprising thing he'd said to her so far.

"I—I don't want this to... I mean..." Peach moved to the door and pushed with all her might, finally getting it budged open just enough for her to slip back through. "I still want you. Now more than ever." And she let the door slam shut behind her and hurried back to her room before she could hear his response, and before she could fully comprehend just what she had just said.

It wasn't until she had retreated back under her covers, still aching and sore in all of the best possible ways, that she realized that she'd never discovered what she had come into his room for in the first place.

But she didn't care.

He wanted her. He _still_ wanted her.

Nothing else mattered to her at that moment.

All subsequent kidnappings, therefore, rendered Peach's bedroom forgotten. Now, not only were parts of her days as his "prisoner" spent with him, but all of her nights as well. As careful as he was with her, he still tore open new wounds every time without meaning to, and Peach still loved it. But it wasn't all sex—some nights she'd just lay in his arms and the two of them would talk, Bowser mostly gloating about all of the traps and obstacles he'd thrown in Mario's way, and Peach finally opening up—again—about her parents. She admitted to him how she still wasn't confident in her ability to effectively run her kingdom. She told him that after all this time, she still refused to declare herself queen because that would confirm, with no wiggle room, that her parents were dead, and while logically she knew that they were, she couldn't bring herself to so definitively state it. Bowser said he wouldn't let that stop him, but admitted that he couldn't really guess at how he'd act in reality, since he'd never actually known his parents, and Peach's heart went out to him again.

No one, at least in the Mushroom Kingdom, suspected Peach's secret. She still screamed and put up a weak fight each and every time Bowser captured her. Mario—and now, his brother Luigi as well—still heroically set off to rescue her every time she was snatched away. When they did, for they always did, Peach baked them a cake as a means of thanks. It was a well-choreographed dance, and Peach knew her part well. She kept her opera gloves on at all times, even while baking, even while playing sports, even while sleeping, in order to hide her scars from Mario, Toad, and everyone else in her kingdom. And in Bowser's kingdom too. She tried her best to not be ashamed of her scars, on her legs and torso as well as her arms by now, but how to explain to anyone who happened to see them that the perfectly prim and proper princess was secretly a masochist and banging the scary brute who kept on capturing her over and over again? She elected to avoid having to explain at all by keeping her skin hidden at all times. The clothes made the princess, anyway. The clothes hid the princess's scars.

It was beginning to happen more and more. The gaps between her kidnappings were becoming shorter and shorter. One time, Bowser had barely waited two weeks since her rescue and return home before capturing her again.

Peach wasn't sure if it was because she had allowed herself to be hurt more than usual the last time, or if she just needed more downtime than this, or what, but she was feeling pretty woozy and disoriented her first day back at Bowser's castle. She forgot to add sugar in her cake, and after placing it in the oven had forgotten about it entirely, only being reminded by the terrified koopas darting away from the kitchen that was now billowing with smoke.

That night, she lay weakly on Bowser's bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to get it to stop moving. Her head was pounding. Bowser hovered over her protectively, holding her hand in his—or rather, between his thumb and forefinger, her hand too small and his too big for anything else.

"I'm fine, Bowser, really," Peach lied.

"Yeah right. If you were fine you wouldn't have nearly burned the kitchen down!"

"Or forgotten the sugar."

"Who cares about the stupid sugar? You don't burn things. Especially not cakes."

"I think I'm just tired. I'm worn down. You've worn me down. ...there's too many colors on the ceiling."

"There aren't any colors on the ceiling." Bowser took a deep breath. "Do you... need me to... take you home?"

Peach blinked. The ceiling became more, not less, blurry. "What? Why?"

"Because you're sick with something!"

"That would be stupid. Mario and Luigi are already on their way."

"So they are," grumbled Bowser.

Peach turned her head away from the ceiling and back to her hand still in Bowser's. Not only was her head hurting now, but her stomach was too. Maybe she'd eaten something wrong. "I'll... be fine," she lied again. "I think... I think I just..." She flinched weakly with what little strength she had. This pain was different. It was a bad kind of pain. This pain was tearing her up from the inside. If she had more strength the pain would be even worse, she guessed. But right now... oh, right now, all she wanted to do was...

She lost all thought and sensation. Everything.

When it came back, it was with confusion... confusion at how bright everything was.

Her eyes slowly opened. Confusion. Exhaustion. Pain; numb, numb pain everywhere.

"Princess! You're awake!"

That sure didn't sound like Bowser...

Peach weakly, slowly, turned her head. She was back home, back in her own bedroom. Back in the Mushroom Kingdom. And it was Toad who was at her bedside this time, not Bowser.

"What... what happened?" she rasped, having trouble finding her voice.

"It's fine, Princess, you're safe now."

"Toad... please... tell me what happened? How..." It occurred to Peach that she must have blacked out somehow, and she had no concept of how much time had passed. It seemed like an instant and an eternity all at once. "How long was I out?"

Her eyes were slowly starting to regain their focus, and she could faintly make out Toad's worried, unsure expression, one that she had rarely seen on him before. "We... we don't know. You've been here, back home with us, for three weeks."

_Three weeks?!_

"But you may have been out for longer. It was a whole month before Mario and Luigi were finally able to rescue you. So it may be as long as nearly two months."

"Oh my..." Peach couldn't say anything else.

"They tried harder than they've ever tried before to rescue you," Toad said, sounding as if he was hastily trying to explain a giant misunderstanding. "But the problem is, Bowser seemed to be trying harder than ever before too. He had _all _of his defenses around his final castle. Mario and Luigi could hardly get close."

Peach closed her eyes, trying not to think. What. What had happened. None of this made any sense.

"But that's not even the strangest thing. After all of that, Bowser just... let Mario and Luigi in. He let them take you back. He didn't even fight them. It's like he gave up, even though we can't figure out why."

Peach, although her brain was still waking up from its nearly two months of inactivity, couldn't stop herself from trying to do the figuring herself. Did Bowser want to make sure she'd be alright before letting Mario and Luigi rescue her? But if that was the case, why would he let her go when she was still clearly not out of the woods yet? Toad said she'd been home for three weeks already, and yet Peach certainly hadn't been conscious for any of that, either.

"Princess? Can you... remember anything that happened after Bowser captured you?"

"I... no," Peach lied. Although it wasn't much of a lie, she reasoned to herself; she hadn't even been there a full day when her memories became a blank. And nothing really out of the usual had happened, besides her blacking out and all. "Nothing that would explain..." Frustrated that she had no answers, she tried to move her arms to push herself into a sitting position on her bed.

"Be careful, Princess," Toad said hastily, although stopping himself from physically restraining her. "You're... in really bad shape still."

Peach, with great effort, turned her head to look down at her body, but she only got as far as her arm before crying out in alarm and jolting upright by a degree or three.

Her gloves were off.

"It's like that everywhere," Toad said softly, gently, sadly. "All over your body."

Peach hastily pulled the covers over her body, covering as much of her heavily scarred arms as she could, and tried to control her panicked breathing. Her greatest secret was out, but judging by Toad's expression and statement, he thought that her scars were related to whatever it was that had put her in that two month coma. He didn't realize she'd had them long before this.

"The doctor isn't sure if they'll ever heal," Toad was continuing.

"That's fine. I don't care. Who—who all has seen me like this?"

"Just me and the doctor."

"That's it? Not even..."

"No, not even Mario. Or Luigi. The doctor wanted to keep you isolated to make sure you could heal and recover fully without distractions. They've been worried about you, though. We all have."

"I... thank you. I'm most grateful for your concern." And she was. She really was. But... "But please don't tell anyone else about... about my body."

"I won't, Princess. My lips are sealed."

"Thank you. This is... not how a princess should look."

"Oh, Princess," said Toad with a comforting, reassuring smile, "it doesn't matter what you look like. We'd all still love you, no matter what."

Peach finally smiled as well.

"But if you don't want people to know, I won't tell them." His face darkened. "And we won't let Bowser do this to you again."

Peach looked away, ashamed of herself. Who would have thought that Toad learning some of her secret would still result in her keeping more from him? And yet still, she didn't want to explain to him that Bowser hadn't torn her apart on purpose and Peach hated it, but that he'd done it on accident and she loved it. She _couldn't_ explain. Let him believe this. It was an easier pill to swallow.

It was an answer Toad was willing to believe as to what had happened to her, but Peach was left with only half of the story, and the half that she hadn't even told Toad anyway. As she recovered, her mind replayed that day, the days before it, over and over, trying to come up with an explanation but coming up with nothing every time. More than ever, she was anxious for Bowser to capture her again so she could find out from him just what had gone on during those missing weeks of her life.

She waited. And waited. Well, that was to be expected—Bowser was probably waiting for her to fully recuperate before snatching her up again. That was reasonable.

She made a full recovery.

And still waited.

It was nearly a year before she was captured again... and it wasn't Bowser doing the capturing.

It was Bowser Junior.

Not again. NOT AGAIN.

Not another one.

And this one felt so much more damning, in a way, than the Koopalings ever had. Bowser had still wanted Peach even after the Koopalings showed up, after all. Now, Bowser didn't even capture her anymore—Junior did. Bowser barely even talked to her anymore. And when she was at the castle, while she was still given free reign, she was back to her old room. Her old room all on her lonesome.

Something had changed.

Peach knew it was silly to blame Junior for the change, and she didn't... not really. She couldn't hate the kid, and even genuinely found herself caring for him at times, her comforting him on the floor of Bowser's airship right now being solid proof of that fact. But the child was still... difficult for her to accept. Whether or not he had been the one who had actually made everything so different, he had made his first appearance not long after everything changed, and it was sometimes difficult to for her mind to not make that connection.

"I'll try talking to your dad," Peach said to Junior, who was still sniffling in her arms. "I can maybe get him to forgive you."

Junior sniffled again, but looked up at Peach with a slightly brighter expression. "Really? You promise?"

"I promise to try. Royal promise." She held up her palm.

She only realized after raising her hand that she was channeling her father, with a gesture that was only between the two of them and that Junior wouldn't know of. But he still seemed to get the gist of it, placing his palm up against hers. Two different hands, one human, one koopa, so different, and yet...

"Look, Mama!" Junior laughed. "Your pinky's bent just like mine is!"

"That's... my dad used to call that the 'royal pinky'," Peach said, faltering. Coincidence. Had to be a coincidence.

"Well, I've got one and I'm royalty! And you've got one too! Weird Daddy doesn't have one, though. I guess I inherited it from you!"

"Junior." _Stop, Peach, stop._ "I need to ask you something." _What are you doing. You know it's impossible STOP IT._ "Who... who is your mother? Really. Your _real_ mother, I mean."

Junior looked at Peach like she was an idiot. "You are! _Duh!"_

"I mean..." Peach tried a different angle. "Isn't there some lady koopa who takes care of you? Or did, at one point?"

Junior shook his head. "Nope! The only girl I'm really around much is Wendy, and she doesn't really like me."

_Plus, she's your cousin,_ Peach thought to herself. "But surely someone, your father, or Kamek, or _someone's_ mentioned to you who your mother was, even if you don't remember her?"

"Well, Kamek has," grinned Junior.

"Oh?" Peach asked in surprise. Finally they were getting somewhere.

"Yeah. Who do you think told me that you're my mama?"

"...what? Kamek told you I'm your mother?" Now Peach was more confused than ever. Why in the world would Kamek tell Junior that?

"Yep! Daddy said he was wrong, but he's never told me anything else, so until someone tells me someone else, it's you!" Junior pressed his palm against Peach's tighter. "Although even if someone does tell me someone else is my mama, I still want you to be my mama. I like you."

"Junior... there's no way... there's no way I can be..." But Peach's tongue kept getting caught. Of course there was no way. A shared crooked pinky didn't suddenly mean that they were related! Besides, Junior was clearly just as koopa as his father; if it were even possible for Peach to have gotten pregnant by Bowser, surely any resulting child would have been some freakish half-breed mix of the two of them. And this was silly to ponder anyway—if Peach had had a child, she would know!

That is, if it had happened while she was conscious and aware.

But no. That was still impossible. Junior was far too old. He had first captured her barely a year after that incident, and he had certainly been more than a year old at that time.

Although Peach had no concept of how koopas aged.

"Junior. How old are you?" No. Impossible. It was impossible. He had to be older than...

Junior beamed proudly. "I'm three! Why?"

Peach felt as though she might faint.

Her unconscious ordeal had been three years ago.


	2. part 2

Upon landing at the castle and disembarking, Junior seemed to have shed nearly all of his shame and hurt feelings, and Bowser most of his foul temper. Or perhaps, Peach thought, they were just doing the same thing as she was and putting on a different face for their underlings. Peach, while her insides were trembling and her head was ringing with a million screaming questions, still stepped into the castle cool, collected, and poised. The heat from the fire and lava did a bit to calm her; she had always found the warmth here comforting.

All of the castle mooks rushed towards their returning ruler, looking various mixtures of surprised and pleased.

"Oh, there you are, sire!"

"We had no idea where you'd gone to!"

"What happened?"

"Princess! We weren't expecting you!"

Peach smiled, leaning down to speak to the koopa troopas that had gathered around her. "Hi, guys! Alonzo, how's your little boy doing?"

"He's doing great, Princess! He'll be getting his braces off next week!"

"Wonderful! I'm so glad to hear that!"

"Blah blah blah, who cares?" grumbled Bowser, yanking Peach by the sleeve of her gown and pulling her along with him. Peach frowned deeply and, as carefully yet forcefully as she could, she broke out of his grasp, but still continued walking alongside him. "You there, Alonzo or whatever your name is!"

The koopa troopa who Peach had just spoken with quickly straightened to attention. "Yes, sire?"

Bowser pushed Junior forward with his foot, much to Junior's annoyance. "This little brat's grounded for about a month for the stunt he just pulled. And no supper for him tonight, either!"

"What?!" whined Junior.

"Okay, fine, rustle up some bread crusts for him or something. Then send him to his room!"

"Wait!" Junior still looked a bit cocky in front of all of his father's mooks, but his voice had a touch of pleading to it. "I swear I didn't mean to make you angry. And Mama said that she'd back me up on this, too!"

Peach opened her mouth to speak, but Bowser cut her off.

**"STOP CALLING HER YOUR MOTHER! SHE IS **_**NOT**_** YOUR MOTHER!** Just for that, half a bread crust! Now—"Bowser turned his attention back to Alonzo—"take him to his room and lock the door!"

"This isn't fair!" screamed Junior as Alonzo began to lead him away. "I just wanted to get you the best birthday present ever! I'll get you for this!" Alonzo pushed him around a corner, and Junior's yelling faded away.

"Aw," said Bowser, with only a touch of sarcasm. "I'd be really proud of him right now if he was saying that to someone else."

"What should we do with Junior's servings of dinner tonight, your nastiness?" another troopa asked. "Shall we designate it to the princess instead? We weren't planning on her being here, but..."

"Nah, give her the rest of the bread crusts," said Bowser offhandedly. "If she's going to side with Junior rather than me, she can take the same punishment. Someone take her to her room, too! I don't care who, any one of you!"

There was murmured confusion amongst the troops—Bowser never treated Peach this way. But two troopas did eventually step forward.

Peach, however, firmly pushed their arms away. She was angry. Very angry. And when she got angry, she got... quiet. Deathly, icily quiet.

"You can't tell me what to do." Her lips were small; her words were cold and curt.

"Oh man, that's rich!" laughed Bowser. "I can so tell you what to do! You're my prisoner, in my kingdom—don't you forget that!"

It was really hard to forget that right now. Peach was humiliated and enraged and feeling betrayed over each of the million possibilities her mind had theorized were the reason for Bowser's treatment of her over these past three years. She had never felt more like a prisoner, not even the very first time he had kidnapped her.

"I have always been your prisoner, and I have always done as I pleased here." _Keep your head high, keep calm... _She needn't have worried. Her icy anger was more than enough to mask her inner confusion and trembling.

"Yeah, well, you've been _lucky!"_ Bowser snapped back. "You've been lucky that every time before now I've been a good mood! But the only reason you're even here right now is because that bratty kid of mine can't follow orders! I call the shots around here—not Junior, not you—ME! Got it?"

"If you don't want me here," said Peach, her voice level, cutting, cold, "why don't you just take me back home?"

Bowser laughed in her face. Peach finally turned her chin away from him by a few degrees, but still forcing herself to look him in the eyes. _"As if! _You really think I'd do that and let everyone think I've grown soft or something? In your _dreams, _Princess!"

Peach blinked hard. He never called her Princess. He always called her by her first name. Except now.

"Now one of you pea-brains take her to her room already! Do I have to do _everything_ around here?"

"No," hissed Peach. "I can go there myself, thank you." She turned around, chin still held high, and began to walk away from the now even more confused gathering of castle guards, servants, and residents. Who could blame them; neither Bowser nor Peach had ever acted this way around each other before. "And don't worry about feeding me, crusts or otherwise. I won't be joining you for dinner."

"Your loss!" Bowser sneered back at her.

Peach was stoic throughout her long, lonely walk to her room. She didn't let herself cry until reaching it and closing the door behind her.

...

The next few hours were the longest hours in Peach's life. There was too much to think about, too many such vastly important things that were pounding in her brain. Was she really... could she be... was it even _possible_... that she was Junior's mother? And if she was, how could that explain Bowser's treatment of her? And if she wasn't, then who was the mother?! Why didn't Junior know? Why had Kamek told him it was _her? _Why did Bowser suddenly not care about her anymore? Why, why, why?!

Part of her desperately wanted to just sink into sleep and shut off her brain for a few hours, but she already knew there was too much inner noise for her to ever be able to shut it off. Not until she got some answers.

It seemed like days before night fell and the lights in the castle went off one by one. Only then, with most of her tears out of her system, did Peach, with resolve, quietly leave her room and make the familiar trek down the hallway.

Upon reaching Bowser's room, Peach could see that there was still a faint glow of light from behind the closed door. Good, she wouldn't be sneaking in on him while he was asleep this time. She wasn't scared of his fire breath or worried that he'd hit her with it, but at least that was one less thing to have to deal with.

She pushed with all of her might, finally getting the door to budge open.

Bowser was awake too, even at this late hour, pacing in front of his window with characteristic heavy steps, looking down at the ground. There was no one else in the room, but not that Peach was surprised by that. If he did have someone else, she was probably only around when Peach wasn't. She bit her lip anxiously, taking advantage of his distraction to gather her thoughts, before stepping completely in the room and forcibly pushing the door shut.

Bowser bolted at the noise, spun towards the door, and instantly clamped his hand over his mouth, as if forcing down any fire that had instinctively shot out again. "What—" His hand muffled his voice, and he gulped and pulled his hand away. _"What the heck are you DOING here?!"_

Peach said nothing, only staring at him with stern, focused eyes.

_"Get back to your room!"_

"No. Not until I get some answers."  
><em><br>"YOU GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW OR I'LL..."_

He trailed off. Peach waited. Bowser, finally, just gestured an arm towards her fruitlessly.

"Or you'll what?" Peach asked levelly.

"I'll... just stand here and yell at you. And you don't care."

Peach nodded. "Indeed."

Bowser flopped down on the bed with a heavy sigh. He looked... defeated. "Just go, okay? Even... even if you want to go home. You can just walk out and go, if you want."

"It's the middle of the night."

"Oh. Yeah."

"I told you. I'm not leaving until I get some answers." Peach felt her eyebrows knit even deeper into her brow.

"I kinda need to know the questions first," Bowser shot back.

Peach faltered. With all of the mental rehearsing she'd done before now, her mind was coming up with nothing but a blank on where best to start. Finally, frustrated, she held out her palms, her fingers spread apart. "You see this?"

"Uh... what are you even doing right now."

"You see them? My pinky fingers? They're bent. It's genetic."

"Yeah... so?"

"Junior has them, too."

One of Bower's eyes twitched suddenly. "Yeah, and? What's your point?"

"I know it's probably a coincidence, but... Junior told me how old he is. And I just—I just need you to tell me, yes or no. I just need to know."

"You're crazy!"

Peach inhaled sharply. Yes. Of course she was crazy. Before leaving her room she had talked herself into the perfectly logical conclusion that there was no way that she could be the mother of a child that was a completely different species. But the puzzle pieces had fallen so perfectly into place, and she just had to find the piece that didn't fit. The piece that would throw this crazy theory out the window. Without it, she'd never have peace. "I know it's impossible, and I know what the answer is, but I just need to hear it from you. Am I..." Her voice broke for the first time. "Am I Junior's mother?"

_"Go away!"_

That wasn't a yes or no answer. Peach's knees began to wobble. "Not until you answer me. What are you hiding from me? Just tell me! Tell me the truth!"

_"YES! For crying out loud, YES, you ARE!_ Happy now?!" Bowser's shoulders slumped even more after the outburst, the sudden silence enveloping the room and accentuating the truth of his words.

Peach slowly, mechanically, sank to her knees. She didn't notice the silence. She wouldn't have noticed any sound had there been any, either. Even her shrieking, frenzied thoughts had been blotted out.

All that was left was: _He's my son. He's my SON. He's MY son._

She vaguely felt tears wet her cheeks.

_I'm a mother. I'm a mother. All this time, these past three years, I've been a mother._

Some other part of her brain was struggling to keep her breathing steady. Peach didn't even care.

_He's my child! That mischievous, scheming little clone of his father is my child, too! He has been all this time! That aggravating, sweet little boy who I've kept comforting despite everything—and he's always been my son!_

Peach's hearing finally registered an awkward grunt. She looked up through her tears. Bowser was standing next to her, looking uncomfortable, holding out a tissue gingerly on the edge of his claw.

She snatched it away, her arm feeling like rubber. And she glared at Bowser. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Bowser shrugged defensively, but not looking at her eyes. "What does it matter?"

"What do you mean, what does it matter?" Peach angrily dabbed at her eyes. "He's my son!"

"Look, you nearly died, okay?" Bowser shot back bitterly.

"But I didn't! What, did you think I couldn't handle the truth?"  
><em><br>"YOU NEARLY DIED!" _Bowser reiterated with much more force. _"Junior_ nearly died! He shouldn't even exist! He was just floating inside of you, not even in an egg like a normal creature! The doctor had to pull him out from you when he was still way smaller than a normal hatchling, but if we'd waited any longer you would have _died!"_

"But I didn't," Peach said again, but softer. "I survived. Junior survived. Why did you keep this from me?"

"What was I supposed to do?" Bowser shouted back, flopping down like a heavy sack of bricks on the floor near the edge of his bed, a few feet away from Peach. "Send him along with you when I finally let the Mario losers take you back? Wrap him up like a friggin' present with a 'Surprise!' banner for when you finally woke up? Maybe if he looked like you I would have done that, but you had a koopa baby, and so I kept him here!" He pulled his arms and legs in tight—very tight—and Peach realized with a start that he was actually trying to retreat under his shell.

"It's not that you kept him," said Peach, dabbing away the last of her tears. Her limbs were still shaking, but at least she seemed to have cried everything out. "That's fine. It's just that you never even told me what happened. You've ignored me ever since then. You could have told me. You could have done _something."_

"Yeah? And what would you have done if I told you? Come running back here and marry me?"

"I... I don't know," Peach admitted.

"Yeah you do. You wouldn't have," Bowser looked down at the floor with a resigned, bitter glare in his eyes. "You can't abandon your kingdom and all. That's what you told me before."

Peach turned her head away as well. Yes, she had turned him down when he'd asked her to marry him. Well, asked wasn't the best word. It was more like he would just blurt out "marry me" at various times when the two of them were alone. And she'd said no every time. It wasn't that she didn't care about him, it was just that her kingdom came first, her parents had entrusted her with it... and their arrangement was working out just fine anyway, right?

There was a long, uncomfortable silence between the two of them.

Finally Peach spoke, in a small voice. "Is that why you've been ignoring me all this time? Because I won't marry you?"

Bowser looked at her incredulously. "What? That's—look, if that were the case, I would've been ignoring you for longer than this! You've been saying you won't marry me for way longer than that!"

"Well then, what is it?"

Bowser continued to look at her like she was crazy. Peach bit her lip, but said nothing else, waiting for his answer.

His answer came in the form of reaching over and yanking off one of her gloves.

"It's that," he said, pointing to the gashes and scars that tattooed her entire forearm. "And the ones your poofy sleeve is covering. And all the ones on your other arm. And on your legs, and on your body."

Peach's face softened, "Bowser, I've told you, I actually like getting—"

"Oh, just shut up already!" Bowser yelled, helplessly flinging her glove aside. "Why don't you think about _me_ for once? I don't like it! I don't like hurting you! And I especially don't like it when I'm the reason you nearly _die_ because I somehow put a baby in you! I love you. I don't like hurting you. But I hurt you every time you're around. So I thought if I just kept you away, then I wouldn't have to hurt you anymore!"

Peach, rubbing her exposed arm, took a few deep breaths. It made sense, so much sense that she couldn't believe that she, even in the midst of all her irrational thinking, hadn't realized it before.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't even... I didn't even think of that. But if you don't want to hurt me... you ignoring me these past couple of years hurt me far worse than anything physical you've ever done to me. I thought you'd stopped caring about me."

"The hell? I've been avoiding you _because_ I care about you!"

"I know. I know that now. But I..." She gulped and looked Bowser back in the eyes. "When you stopped trying to kidnap me, and when I saw that you had a kid, I thought you'd found someone else."

"Are you crazy? There's never been anyone else! It's always been just _you!"_

Peach felt as though she might cry from relief. All of her fears, every single jolt of jealousy from all of these years were unfounded. There never was anyone else. Seven of those kids weren't even his, and the one that was... was her kid, too. It had always only been _her._

She scooted over closer to him. He growled and tried to turn away.

"Please, don't. Please. I'm sorry. But I've missed you." She carefully slipped under his arm and pressed herself close to his body. Bowser relaxed a bit, but Peach could see that his eyes still looked tense.

"It's okay," Peach comforted him. She kissed the side of his face. "I'm okay. _We're _okay."

"Humph. Not really." Bowser stroked her cheek with the front end of his hand, keeping his claws turned into his palm. "I wish you were a koopa."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because koopas are tougher than you."

"I'm tough." Peach crossed her arms, but was still smiling playfully. "I survived a cross-species pregnancy that shouldn't have even happened. How much tougher can you get? And my son's tough, too."

Bowser finally smiled a bit. "Duh he's tough, but he gets that from his dad."

"Probably from both of his parents."

"Well, his parents _are_ both pretty awesome."

"Speaking of Junior, though, you should let up on him. He didn't mean any harm. You should let him go have some fun with the Koopalings."

"Hmm... maybe in a few days. I don't care if he meant any harm or not, he still ran off in my airship. Little brat."

"He feels plenty bad about it already, though," said Peach. "I think you've punished him enough."

"I'll decide when he's been punished enough, he's _my_... oh. Right." Bowser smirked sheepishly. "Yours, too."

Peach nodded, still trying to let that sink in. She was a mother. She was _Junior's_ mother. In all honest-to-goodness truth, she was. No matter how many ways she _shouldn't_ have been; somehow, she still was.

"So... now what are we gonna do? What are _you_ gonna do?" Bowser's smile was gone, and looked unsure again, his head down but his eyes still on Peach.

Peach gulped. Wasn't that the question. A conventional couple they were not, and they wouldn't have been even without the supposed bad blood between them and their kingdoms. It had been workable... thrilling, even in a strange way, to have their secret fling, but it was going to be hard for Peach to hide the fact that she knew Junior was just as much her child as he was Bowser's.

"I don't know," she admitted softly.

"I've got an idea! I can take over the Mushroom Kingdom, for real this time. Then I can marry you and we can both rule over both of our kingdoms together!"

Peach shook her head. "Mario would defeat you. He defeats you even here, on your home turf."

Bowser scoffed. "I let him win," he said, but with not as much conviction this time.

"Maybe..." Peach murmured, before she could stop herself. "Maybe I should just come out and admit to everyone what's been going on."

_"What?! NO!"_ Bowser stirred violently, and Peach moved away from him in surprise. "Look, people... can't know that I feel like this. I've got a reputation to uphold, you know!"

Peach shook her head, not bothering to hide her smile. "Bowser, I think everyone knows how you feel about me. You do a terrible job of hiding it."

Bowser stared at her incredulously before suddenly plopping his face down in his palms, pouting. "Damn."

"I'm the one who should be worried about what people think. This isn't what a princess is supposed to be." She looked at her exposed arm again, each scar a wonderfully passionate and enticing memory, but a scar still the same. "I'm not ashamed of anything, I just don't think anyone would understand."

"Probably not," said Bowser, turning his head away from her, keeping his eyes off of her scars. "Kamek and whatever the heck my doctor's name is don't understand, either."

Peach looked down at her foot, which was absently tracing circles on the ground, and did her best to keep her voice level and calm. "They know about us?"

"Yeah. Just them. I told them if they ever told anyone I'd use them as bowling pins." Bowser scowled. "Although Kamek did have to go blab to Junior."

"Junior told me that Kamek told him I'm his mother. Why did he—"

"Who knows? He tried to feed me some stupid story about Junior seeing you and just 'instantly knowing' and that Kamek just told him he was right, but I don't buy it."

Peach, however, felt oddly comforted at the fact that Junior had recognized her at first sight. If it was true, of course. She hoped it was.

"But, whatever," Bowser continued, grumpily. "You're right, no one would get it. Everyone would think you're a freak. And if you showed them your arms, they'd think that I'm just some horrible jerk."

"I thought you wanted people to think that you're a horrible jerk."

"No, I want people to think I'm an _EXCELLENT_ jerk. Besides... I don't want to be a jerk to you." His voice grew a lot smaller there.

"You're not."

"Oh, knock it off already! Stop trying to make me feel better! I'm the reason you nearly _died!"_

"You didn't mean it, though. None of us even thought that I could get pregnant, anyway."

"Well, I'm not going to risk it again." Bowser scooted further away from Peach, seemingly trying to end the conversation.

Peach would have none of that, though. She wasn't going to have everything snap back to the way it was earlier that day, even if she now knew why it was that way. She stood up, walked over towards him, and carefully lifted his chin up with her bare hand.

"You don't have to," she said gently. "We can still be intimate. We can still... have sex, even, without us worrying about me getting pregnant again. There are ways. Even if we just hold hands sometimes, that's better than nothing. But please, please, don't shun me anymore. I can't bear that. I love you. I want to be here, but only if you're doing things with me. Only if you make me feel like _you_ want me here."

"I always want you here," said Bowser, nuzzling her hand automatically. "Why do you think I keep asking you to marry me?"

"Well, you can't blame me for having my doubts. You haven't seemed to want me around for these past three years. You haven't even kidnapped me in all that time. I understand you not wanting for me to nearly die again, but I can be here, we can still be _togethe_r, without that being a concern."

Bowser sighed, but then grinned at her, wrapping his arms around her waist possessively. "Okay, I take it back. You're tougher than any koopa I know—besides me, of course. If you still wanna be here now that you know what really happened, well, you can't expect me to hold back anymore! I'm tired of trying to fight it. It's gonna be just like old times again. I'm gonna be kidnapping you _all the friggin' time _now. I hope you're happy."

"Nothing could make me happier," said Peach, smiling blissfully. "I'm so glad you still care."

"Never stopped." He stroked a long, golden lock of her hair between two large fingers. "Don't go back to your room. Stay here tonight. With me."

Peach pressed her face against his, kissing him lightly and sweetly. "I don't want to be anywhere else."

...

The next morning, Peach was awake early, and loath to leave Bowser's embrace after being denied it for so long, but she still slipped away anyway, careful to not wake him. She then got dressed, did her hair (pleased and touched that Bowser had still kept her personal care items in his bathroom this entire time), and quietly made her way to the castle kitchen.

Upon arrival, however, she discovered that she was not the first to make an early-morning trek to the kitchen.

Bowser Junior had stacked three chairs all on top of each other and was precariously tottering on his tiptoes, trying to reach the shelf above the stove where all of the candy containers were.

Peach gasped. Junior, startled, lost his balance and tumbled down, the flimsy chair tower collapsing as well.

Peach rushed over and deftly caught Junior before he hit the ground. Junior gave her an abashed, guilty smile. "Uh, hi, Mama."

"Junior! What were you even doing?"

"Trying to get some real food! Those bread crumbs last night didn't cut it!"

At the mention of food, Peach's stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her for the first time that she hadn't eaten a thing last night. She reached up and pulled a cookie jar down, setting it down on a counter and opening the lid. "These look like they might help both of us," she remarked.

"Oh boy!" Junior jumped out of her arms and onto the counter, grabbing a handful. "Just what I wanted! Thanks, Mama!"

Peach smiled warmly. "You're welcome. But you'll need to get off the counter. I'm going to be baking."

"Baking what?" Junior asked, his voice muffled by cookies.

"A cake. I didn't know yesterday was your dad's birthday, and I feel bad that I didn't get anything for him. So I'm going to bake him a cake." Junior brightened at this, and Peach felt herself glow too, a wave of loving emotion coming over her as she looked at... her son. This was going to take some getting used to, but Peach didn't even care. "Do you want to help me?"

"Really? Yeah!" Junior quickly scampered off the counter. "What do we do first? Can we make it chocolate? OOH! Chocolate with green frosting! And skulls all over it! And HUGE! We'll make the biggest cake ever!"

"We'll see," smiled Peach. "I see you've got a love for baking. Looks like you inherited something else from your mama besides your pinky."

"I like food," shrugged Junior innocently, "so why _wouldn't_ I like baking?"

Peach laughed. "Good point. Now let's get started. You can start by finding me a big mixing bowl."

As Junior eagerly scampered off, and as Peach began gathering up the rest of the needed baking essentials, a wave of happiness began to enfold her. At this time yesterday, she wouldn't have believed it, but this had been the best birthday she had ever had. She'd finally gotten exactly what she wanted—and then some.

And, although it was a day late, she was going to make today the best birthday celebration ever.


End file.
